Upgrade - July 2005

Happy Camper
The quest to bring the comforts of the great indoors to the great outdoors has spawned a wide variety of gargantuan RVs and trailers. But fuel doesn't grow on trees, and maneuvering through traffic and narrow roads is no picnic in a Winnebago the size of a Greyhound. These days, it's refreshing to see anything on the road that makes efficient use of its own space. Which brings us to the T@B ($8843 to $15,213, depending on exterior and options), a lightweight '60s-retro teardrop trailer that can be accessorized with red, orange, yellow or silver trim. At 6 ft. 7 in. wide x 7 ft. 9 in. high, it's small enough to fit in your garage and big enough for you to stand up (okay, crouch) in. Should you wish to lie down, the couch seating can turn into a queen-size bed. You can even tow the T@B's 1346 pounds with a Toyota Corolla. Its period-piece exterior doesn't mean you can't trick out the trailer with air conditioning, porta-potty and mini fridge--somehow, the T@B makes room.--Wes Meltzer

We love a gadget with a sense of irony. Samsung's new p207 is the first cellphone that you talk to as well as talk through. Using VoiceMode speech-to-text voice messaging, the p207 lets you dictate your text messages, so that your fingers do less walking. After a little voice training, our p207 performed surprisingly well, although its interpretation of our test tongue twister yielded frightening results. $80 from Cingular Wireless; www.cingular.com

How do you like to ride? Some enjoy bouncing from wave to wave while standing tall, others like to sit, still others get on their knees and beg the sea for mercy. The 782cc Sea-Doo 3D personal watercraft accommodates all styles. It's the first PWC that can be reconfigured or accessorized into five different riding positions using everything from an optional adjustable shock absorber to a motorcycle-style seat (shown). $6999; www.seadoo.com

Hose? Check. Spare 110-volt outlet? Check. Relaxing soak, coming right up. The 250-gal. Spa2Go is the first fully inflatable hot tub. To use it, plug it in, watch it inflate, fill it up and let the water heat (overnight). The Spa2Go holds four adults and uses 127 microjets. The tough SK80 vinyl exterior is the same material used for rafts, so your hot-tub party won't go bust. $899; www.comfortlineproducts.com

When the family dog tries to claw his way through the bedroom door, it's time for a touchup. Those of us who think ahead keep cans of extra paint around for such occasions, and those of us who don't can only watch as our walls suffer death by 1000 scuffs. Rubbermaid's Paint Buddy is a reusable, resealable roller brush that keeps leftover paint sealed up and at the ready in a compact case that won't clutter the garage. $11; www.rubbermaid.com

Somewhere between a golf cart and an ATV lives the off-road utility vehicle. These tough customers pack trucklike features into a compact package. Kawasaki's Mule 3010 Trans 4x4 adds new versatility to the class with a fold-down rear passenger seat that extends the cargo bed for up to 800 pounds of capacity. The four-wheel-drive Mule 3010 has a 617cc four-stroke engine. With an optional hitch, it can tow 1200 pounds. $9599; www.kawasaki.com

The latest assault on the iPod comes from a company that knows its target well. Toshiba has long supplied hard drives for Apple's music players, and that makes Toshiba's Gigabeat (available in 10GB, 20GB, 40GB and 60GB) a natural contender. It has a larger color screen and sells for less than Apple's color machines (if you shop around). Its weakness is the software, which lacks the intuitive touch of Apple's iTunes. $279 to $449; www.gigabeat.com

With a range of vertical and horizontal motion inspired by the space-shuttle arm, the ThunderHead promises to deliver torrents of water from any angle you can think of. The 9-in.-dia. shower head is covered with 90 evenly spaced spray nipples for a uniform blast of industrial-strength cleaning. And it comes with an optional flow controller to restrict water use to 2.5 gal. per minute--which does steal a bit of its thunder. $60; www.etindustries.com

A:I designed a wheelbarrow with a ball for a wheel called the Ballbarrow. Unlike conventional wheelbarrows, it didn't sink in soft earth.

2Q: Your new vacuum works by using an articulated joint around a rolling ball. What's with the balls?

A:It's a very efficient shape. With an ordinary vacuum, you have to go back and forth to steer around an object. Our vacuum moves around the ball, so you can steer without all the extra movement.

3Q: What is life like for the modern basement inventor?

A:So many patents have been filed that it's hard to be completely original. But I still think there's room for the basement inventor, because he can take risks that big companies can't.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Backyard Lab

Thrilla On The Grilla

Some swear by gas, others by charcoal. We tested both--flamo a flamo.

BY LOGAN WARD

SPARKY (gas) VS. SMOKY (charcoal)

Since time immemorial--or at least 1960, when Modern Home Products invented the gas grill--men have gone Hatfield and McCoy over the best way to cook dinner in the backyard. In the States, gas grills outsell charcoal models 2 to 1. Still, purists swear by the ancient ritual of laying a cooking fire and the smoky flavor that comes from searing meat over glowing coals. To douse the heated debate, we staged a cook-off between gas and charcoal. To help us, we enlisted the services of one cow, one pig, two chickens and a couple of cans of beer.

Before we can get down to business, Smoky needs a 40-minute warmup, while Sparky is raring to cook after less than 10 minutes. When flare-ups from both camps threaten to burn the beef, we drop a lid on Smoky and choke down his airflow by closing vents. Quenching Sparky's flames is as simple as rotating burner dials from high to low. In the end, Sparky's patties are better-looking (wide stainless grates leave near-perfect sear marks) and slightly juicier, but when it comes to flavor, the panel of hungry carnivores (aka "the judges") rules unanimously in favor of Smoky.

Sparky's hen, with its plump brown breasts, wins the beauty contest. But the charcoal-cooked chicken, coated in a fine layer of ash, is both juicier and smokier-tasting, probably due to the dwindling charcoal temperatures that dipped below even the "low" setting of the gas grill.

TEST THREE: PORK SHOULDER
Last up, the grilling marathon-5 hours of slow-cooking a bowling-ball-size hunk of hog. We season two 8-pound picnic shoulders, lay them above drip pans with low, indirect heat rising on either side, and wait. We add charcoal once. The charcoal-cooked pork turns out tastier and juicier, and falls away from the hock with the prod of a fork. The gas-cooked shoulder, though russet-colored and savory, is tougher, slicing more like a roasted turkey.

THE WINNER

The gas grill is more convenient, cleaner and turns out better-looking dishes. The same could be said for the kitchen. Which leads to the deeper question: Why grill? If it's to break the workaday monotony with a nod to our hunter-gatherer past, then the dirtier, smokier experience of the charcoal grill--not to mention its superior flavor--wins spatulas down.

Did you know? The first charcoal briquettes were made from wood scraps left over from Model T production. The charcoal plant Henry Ford built later became the Kingsford Co., which today converts more than 1 million tons of wood scraps into briquettes each year.

Off The Shelf

Class Project

We locked a team of teenage geniuses in a room for 6 hours with RadioShack's Vex robotics kit. Here's what came out.

BY JILL DAVIS

This year, 2Train Robotics, a student team from the South Bronx's Morris High School Campus, snagged the top prize in the New York City regional FIRST Robotics Competition. The team's 130-pound machine, dubbed 2Spicy, took six weeks and $3500 to build. So when we decided to test the limits of RadioShack's Vex Robotics System, a do-it-yourself kit with 500-plus parts and a comparatively puny price tag of $299, we gave the kids at 2Train a call. The assignment? Build a freakin' cool machine--and do it fast. After 6 hours, the result was 2Spicy Jr. (above), a robot with an articulating crane designed to pick up the receiver of a standard telephone. A separate articulating finger dials numbers--in this case, 911. "We wanted to help the handicapped," says sophomore Livio Guerrero. Admittedly, 2Train felt constrained by the limitation of a mere 500 parts. The gear ratios didn't provide enough torque to build a robot that could perform more complex tasks, such as climbing over walls. However, if the customer wants more functionality, RadioShack is more than happy to sell accessories. The retailer stocks several kits that allow users to preprogram their robot, coordinate it with other bots, or use multiple remote controls for different functions on one robot.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Robot novices will appreciate the kit's hefty inventor's manual that includes clear explanations of analog versus digital sensors, gear systems and the preprogrammed microcontroller. And for parents concerned about putting keps nuts and radio transmitters in the hands of curious kids, fear not: The guide also warns against licking batteries or inserting sensors into nostrils.

With its mini keyboard and 7-in. screen, the 2-pound Toshiba Libretto U100 looks as if it were left in the dryer too long. But it is a surprisingly capable laptop and multimedia machine with a 1.2-GHz processor, 60GB drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and snap-on DVD drive. $1999; www.toshiba.com

All-in-one devices are a standard of digital mythology: Everybody's heard of them, but you never actually see anybody using one. I had the chance when I tested the Olympus m:robe 500i, a 20GB machine with a 3.7-in. touchscreen display that is a music player, 1.2-megapixel camera and photo viewer. Verdict? Great with tunes and the screen is crisp, but colors are weak and controls are a chore--the touchscreen is your only interface. I'm looking forward to version 2.0. $400; www.olympusgroove.com--Rebecca Day

Sony's 5.1-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-17 is a marvel of miniaturization that fits a 3x optical zoom lens into a camera that is just over 1/3 in. thick. Its 2.5-in. Clear Photo transmissive/reflective LCD screen is likewise impressive in preventing reflective light from washing out the image. $500; www.sonystyle.com

There's usually nothing glamorous about hard drives, but a 100GB drive that measures only 5.1 x 2.9 x 0.5 in. can make heads turn. That's 21 DVDs' worth of capacity in a drive that fits in a shirt pocket. It requires only a USB cable for both power and data. It spins at just 4200 rpm, but in our tests we were able to stream smooth video from it to our PC. $299; www.iomega.com

At some point in the past 20 years, the personal music player killed the once-mighty boombox, and portable tunes got a little less social in the process. But now a minispeaker trend is gathering steam. Our favorite palm-size set is Pacific Rim's Cube Travel Speakers. These cheap, self-powered speakers sound impressive, fold up when not in use and work with nearly any player. $40; www.pacrimtechnologies.com

What is it: Dual-screen kid magnet with integrated Wi-Fi Coolest features: Games utilize both screens; the bottom one is touch sensitive Biggest flaw: Lacks the sophistication and sleek polish of PSP Best game:WarioWare Touched!

What is it: A superhot multimedia/gaming handheld Coolest feature: A dazzling 4.3-in. LCD screen Biggest flaw: With no internal memory, movies and photos must be stored on an expensive Memory Stick Duo Best game:Lumines